7 Things I Wish They Taught us in School

It’s a famous question the answer to which usually cues to whether somebody nods on or nods off.

There’s a lot of pressure on students nowadays to perform well academically and return home with perfect scores so they could get into good colleges. However, good degrees no longer guarantee great jobs, and great jobs no longer guarantee job security. Having experienced both the academic and corporate world, it’s easy to put together a list of necessary life lessons school syllabi tend to overlook;

7) Failing is good. To some extent. The academic system conditions us to hate red crosses on our papers so we try hard to stay within our comfort zone without attempting new things lest we fail in them. This realization hit me once during an acrylic painting class. We started with the background – a twilight scene – and then were instructed to be creative and draw whatever it was we were comfortable with. I wanted to copy my friend’s swan but stopped because I was too scared to ruin the whole painting so I ended up painting grass as it was well within my comfort zone. The world is filled with mottos such as “Fail Forward” for a reason. While failure is never fun, it’s sometimes necessary as a teaching tool. Of course, JK Rolwing says it best,

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” Tweet this

5) Ask a lot of questions. If you’ve been in a classroom setting then you’ve probably heard someone ask a question that others sniggered over. Maybe you were the one asking or the one sniggering. However, asking questions is another life skill that people need to master because how else would we learn?

6) Break a few rules. Have you ever been rebuked for coloring outside the lines? Innovators go against the norm when it comes to their work. If Steve Jobs had gone with the norm, we’d still be using phones that have a keypad. Breaking a few rules can be uncomfortable, disastrous, but it can also teach you a couple of lessons and it can give you a good story to tell. Just because I’m counting down doesn’t mean that the numbers need to be in order.

4) Daydream. During classes, teachers tend to pick on the daydreamers, with the question,

“Am I boring you?”

Now you can have a science-backed comeback.

“No, I’m just doing my best creative work.”

In a discussion about his book Imagine, Jonah Lehrer discusses the importance of dedicated daydreaming – letting your mind wander, while maintaining enough awareness to recognize insights as they come.

3) P.E. is not just a class. I hated Physical Education (P.E.) in school. I spent it mostly sitting down. Apparently sitting is the new smoking. It’s well known that walking for even thirty minutes every day can tremendously improve one’s health in the long-term, but physical activity is also important for the brain as it boosts memory and thinking skills.

2) It’s not about the grade. Okay, so maybe the grade is an important aspect of one’s academic life because higher education depends on it. But grades are not the be-all and end-all of school. What it is about is life-long learning and exercising your creative and cognitive skills to solve real life problems. Though that sentence might sound like it came from a glossy brochure, do ask yourself everyday – even if you’re out of school – ,

“What did I learn today that I didn’t know yesterday?”

“Am I thinking for myself or just acting as an echoing chamber?”

“Did I exercise my creativity?”

1) Not all dreams come with a syllabus. As students we’re conditioned to ‘stick to the syllabus’, but the well-defined syllabus of “Go to school, get one job and retire at 65” is outdated. The work landscape is changing so rapidly, careers are no longer linear; career changes – aka pivoting – have become the norm. There’s a whole new movement on the quarter-life crisis. The place to start is to know yourself, know where you are (A), know where you want to be (B), and find your path from A to B.